


School of the Fox

by inadequeer



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Witcher, Child Abandonment, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mage!Neil, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Witcher!Andrew
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25970116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inadequeer/pseuds/inadequeer
Summary: "I thought Witchers were supposed to be emotionless..." Neil commented as the Witcher looked him over head to toe, inspecting him and his injuries. Slitted cat's eyes narrowed at him from where Andrew knelt."Don't say stupid things."
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 14
Kudos: 74





	1. Gut Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> so i'm playing super fast and loose with the magic rules in this fic, so if you care a lot about the witcher worldbuilding and how they do magic i got bad news for you. i don't. like at all. same goes for… well most of its world building. ive only seen the show and played the third game so i have a pretty basic knowledge of it.  
> please if you love me don't correct me on things. in fact even if you hate me don't do this. i really really do not care. im just here because witchers are inherently sexy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this first chapter is pretty short because its mostly just a set dressing piece, the second chapter is when most of the characters and the plot are introduced

Neil shouldn’t have stopped. He should have kept riding right when he saw a single man facing down an entire pack of ghouls. He should have just sped past and be grateful to him for distracting the monsters, it’s what his mother would have undoubtedly done, but Neil was not his mother. He had spent so much time fearing that he would grow up to be like his father, but it turns out he wasn’t truly like either of his parents. Mary Hartford was single minded and unwavering in her quest to protect her son and she would walk across a mountain of bones if it got her and Neil further away from his father. After everything she had done to keep him safe she would be furious at him for risking his life for a stranger, _but she wasn’t here any longer_ Neil reminded himself as he vaulted off his horse and drew his blade.

A ghoul on its own was not terribly difficult to defeat, a particularly determined farmer could dispatch one with a pitchfork and enough nerve, the danger with ghouls was in numbers. They were Necrophages, corpse eaters, but would happily attack the living to satisfy their insatiable hunger and would swarm anyone or _thing_ foolish enough to get close. In part, they resembled humans- they had arms and legs like men but they walked on all fours like dogs and there was no sign of sentiment, reason or even a spark of consciousness in their eyes. They could be found anywhere there was a body, buried or not, from graveyards to battlefields, the scent of death would draw them out like rats.

It wasn’t until Neil took the head off one and sent in flying did the man notice his would-be rescuer. Well, "rescuer" might not be that accurate. In truth he appeared to have the situation well in hand, in fact he shouted at Neil to get away, he used a bit more colorful language to do so, but Neil had already committed to helping so he continued until every last monster had been slain and dirt was wet with blood. 

“There aren’t many people who would risk their hide for a random stranger, especially not someone like me." The man observed with a jovial laugh that startled Neil somewhat. "You’re either very brave or very stupid, so which are ya?” He was older than Neil though that didn’t necessarily make him old. Neil would put him at about mid thirties, perhaps forties. He carried a large two-handed broadsword and wore sturdy but worn armor that revealed heavily tattooed arms underneath. Neil jolted in surprise and quickly looked down when he met the man's eyes and saw they were a piercing golden orange with slitted pupils, like a fox or a cat. _He was a Witcher. He had to be._

He had only ever seen one other Witcher before now, when a wyvern was terrorizing the village and the people got together to raise money to hire a Witcher to kill it. Witchers were mutated monster hunters, created through both magical and alchemical means and when a monster needed killing it was a Witcher you called to do the job. 

Now whether a Witcher was Human or not was up for debate. Neither monster nor man. Due to their otherness Witchers were almost as feared as the monsters they were created to slay, and considered an abomination by others. But they were rare, the schools that once created them were attacked and destroyed by fearful citizens and so the few remaining Witchers roamed the continent in search of work. 

His mother had told him they didn't truly belong to either world. He really wasn't sure what was going through his head at the time that made him think it was a good idea to speak up, but the half elven, half human child had said to his mother _"Oh so like me?"_. Mary slapped him for that, she was always trying to teach him to watch his mouth, and told him to never speak such foolish things again. Unfortunately he would go on to say plenty more foolish things in his life.

Neil's hands itched self consciously to tug his hood further down his head under the scrutiny of such an intense stare but he resisted, knowing that would just draw attention to it and slowly sheathed his blade. 

“In my experience there isn’t much difference between the two.” He answered, which earned an amused smirk from the man.

“Can’t argue with that, but at least you can handle yourself. You sure know how to swing a sword, that's for sure. The names Wymack and I thank you for your assistance. Those bastards are nasty when they start swarming like that.” Neil was a little surprised that he was actually thanking him, in his experience most men resented being rescued or any kind of assistance even when they were clearly in danger. Perhaps his ego was stripped along with his emotions during the Witcher trials. Though this man seemed to have just as many emotions as any other man Neil had met, nothing like the cold and silent Witcher that had visited his home in the past.  
“When I have to…” Neil mumbled. He shouldn't have lingered, he should have got right back on his horse the moment the last monster lay dead, why did he stick around?

“Where did you learn?” He asked, a simple question really, totally innocuous but already Neil wanted to bolt. Too many questions- well any questions really- were a bad thing to him.

“My mother taught me.” He answered weakly.

“So you haven’t had any kind of formal training? I'm surprised. Well I guess your mom must be one hell of a warrior.”

"She was." Neil Agreed. If he noted the past tense in Neil's words he had the sense not to comment on them. He was talking to Neil like he was some sort of scared animal, like any wrong word would make him bolt back into the forest and Neil could tell he was purposefully not asking for his name. Which reminded him it was about time for him to find a new alias, but he had been Neil Josten since his mother died… He knew he couldn’t afford to get sentimental but he was having difficulty letting this name go.

"So where ya headed? If it's back into town I'll buy you a drink."

"No, I'm just passing through. In fact I should really be moving on now." He answered, as vaguely as possible, shifting to make his way back to his horse.

"It's dangerous to travel alone," As proof he gestured to the pile of Ghoul corpses at his feet and raised his scarred eyebrows. "Is it just you?"

"No." Neil lied. "I'm meeting my companions at our campsite up ahead." _Of course_ it was dangerous to travel alone, but it wasn't like he had much choice in the matter. Honestly, Neil was worried more about humans than monsters and he still didn't trust this Witcher and so if he thought Neil had companions that were waiting for him that might be enough to dissuade him from following Neil and slitting his throat in the night.

There were all sorts of rumors about how dangerous and brutal a Witcher could be and just because this one had been amiable so far didn't mean he wouldn't turn on Neil in a second if he discovered no one would miss Neil if he went missing.

"Alright, well be careful." Wymack accepted this lie easily and something told Neil that it wasn't that he believed Neil but knew he was lying and just let it go unchallenged. Fear coiled slightly tighter in his stomach. "If you're ever in the Palmetto Valley down south look me up. I can guarantee you a hot meal and booze but that's really all I can promise."

That was not at all what Neil was expecting him to say and stared skeptical at the man..

"Okay? Why are you telling me this?" He asked, brows furrowed.

Something flickered in the man's face, sadness? Weariness? It wasn't the pity he but something familiar that said Wymack understood what it cost to be Neil. He knew what it was like to have to fight to wake up and keep moving every day. Neil doubted the man could ever really understand, but even that tiny bit was more than he'd ever gotten in his life. Neil had to look away. "We Witchers are big on paying back debts, what goes around comes around sort of thing. Besides, I got a gut feeling that we're going to meet again some day."

"A gut feeling?" Neil repeated, in disbelief. The fact that he hadn’t already gotten back on his horse and left was absurd and his mother would beat him black and blue if she knew he was even considering Wymack’s offer. But…

Neil had no one and nowhere to go. If his mother had had a destination in mind when they set out she never told Neil and now he was just wandering, aimless and adrift. Moving from village to village, never staying in one place for too long. This simple offer of a hot meal was the closest thing to a direction he had had since his mother had died. It was a gossamer thread and Neil clung to it like a lifeline.

"I thought Witchers were nomadic?"

"We are. Well, typically. But we don't like the cold so we tend to hole up in one place or another during the winter and Palmetto is just where I usually end up." 

"I can't promise anything." Neil said noncommittally, shrugging his shoulders and finally getting back up on his horse and nodding to leave.

"Well the offer doesn't expire. Just ask for Wymack. See you around."

Neil didn't bother to answer and spurred his horse forward.


	2. Foxhunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you cant recreate andrew and neil's iconic first meeting in your au whats even the point

Neil ran with the desperation of a fox pursued by a pack of hounds snapping at its heels, pelting through the woods as the hunters thundered on horseback behind him. He tripped and stumbled over tree roots and underbrush, vicious thorns and branches tearing at his clothes and exposed skin but he couldn't stop for a moment. 

It was the third full day he had been fleeing these specific pursuers but now they were finally catching up to him and Neil could practically feel their horses breathing down his neck as they gave chase. It was the full tilt run of a prey animal being hunted, as he sprinted through the woods and didn’t look back, he couldn’t. It took all his concentration to keep his footing, to not trip until he was dizzy with exhaustion. He didn't recognize the woods he was running through, though that in itself wasn't all that surprising but there was no road or landmarks other than the sun's position in the sky to indicate where he was and what direction he was running and the sun had long since set.

Running was the only life Neil knew anymore. Neil's father enjoyed the chase far too much to simply let them go, so when he and his mother ran they were hunted. By professionals and mercenaries alike, or just any random person who recognized them from the poster offering a generous reward for their return.

He knew he wouldn't even be in this situation if he had been more careful- his mother would never have been so careless. But she was gone and without her Neil made stupid mistakes that got him caught.

She was gone. That was the end that Neil had to now tack on to the end of all of his thoughts. His mother was dead and he was alone. He had kept moving when she died last year in the spring, but what was he supposed to do? He didn’t know where to go without her. She was the one who planned their travels, got them lodging, new names, weapons- everything they needed to avoid Neil’s father. 

Nathan Wesninski, better known as The Butcher, was a warlord and to Neil’s knowledge he had never butchered anything that wasn’t another person. Time was strange when you spent every moment looking over your shoulder but Neil was 19 now so according to the callender it had been 10 years since the full moon that Neil’s mother had filled her bag full of gold and stolen away with Neil.

On the run his mother had always stayed in control, weaving the perfect stories and choosing ideal marks to help them. Neil in comparison was fumbling his way through and leaving a sloppy trail behind him. Mentally he retraced his steps backward, remembering the name of each village or town or city he stayed at to get to this point. He remembered the black sands beach along the Lost Coast where his mother finally gave up the fight. 

It was early winter, late autumn when  _ he  _ had found them and while they managed to escape it was too late for Mary. She had a knife buried deep in her side. One of Neil's father's blades. The Butcher loved his knives and Neil had had one forced into his hand as soon as he was old enough to hold a weapon. And as much as the connection to his father made his skin crawl, the training was useful and the blades he kept hidden in his boots and belt had saved his life more than once.

She'd bled most of the way through Temeria, but he hadn't thought it was serious. He hadn't known she was bleeding out on the inside, a kidney and her liver ruptured, her intestines bruised beyond repair. He didn't know when she figured it out, if she'd known by Verden that something was seriously wrong but was too scared to stop or if she hadn't seen her death coming until they crossed the Cintra border and she started losing consciousness.

They stopped on the coast, six feet from the tide and she made him repeat every promise she'd ever dragged out of him:  _ don't look back, don't slow down, and don't trust anyone. Be anyone but himself, and never be anyone for too long. _

By the time Neil understood she was saying goodbye, it was too late. She died gasping for one more breath, panting with something that might have been words or his name or fear. Neil could still feel her fingernails digging into his arms as she fought not to slip away, and the memory left him shaking all over. Her abdomen felt like stone when he touched her, swollen and hard. 

He hadn't cried when the flames caught, and he hadn't flinched when he pulled her cooling bones out. He filled her bag with everything that was left of her, carried her two miles down the beach, and buried her as deep as he could. By the time he found the road again he was numb with shock, and he lasted another day before he fell to his knees on the roadside and puked his guts out. 

It was dumb luck and ingrained survival instincts that had gotten him this far but Neil knew eventually his luck would run out.

“Survive.” That had been his mother's last wish for him as she bled to death on that bleak fall morning. Neil was trying to obey her final request─ but obedience had never come easily to him. With his mother dead Neil was becoming increasingly more desperate and desperate meant sloppy and this group of hunters discovering him was the direct result of that carelessness. His mother was of elven blood and she knew magic that she would use to get them out of situations like this. 

She had tried to teach Neil but while he had inherited her power he lacked the skill and control she had. An attempt to start a small campfire had once created a forest fire that almost killed them both and burned down acres and acres of woodland, but in this situation that might not be such a bad thing. 

_ Magic was all about controlling Chaos _ , that was what Mary told Neil during their informal lessons, squeezed in between moments of running for their life and hiding in shadows. Chaos was attracted to Neil more than an average mage she told him, but he struggled to harness it into anything other than raw destructive force. It wasn't as if he had any time to hone his skills so every spell he cast was a desperate gamble for his life, just like now.

The elven words tripped over his tongue between exhausted pants for breath and his pursuers grew closer, the sounds of their horses tearing through the underbrush almost right on top of him. When the final words of the spell left his lips there was a blinding flash of light that illuminated the entire forest for a brief moment and Neil saw clearly the men chasing him before the entire mountainside was immediately plunged back into darkness of night. He waited for something- anything to happen but there was nothing. There were a million things that could have gone wrong with the spell and he didn't have time to stop and consider them all to evaluate his mistake, he just kept running. 

He just kept running and rain started to fall through the dense tree cover making the ground treacherous. tripping and falling. A sharp boulder cut a gash in his leg but still he kept moving, blood spilling from his wound giving the people following him a clear and obvious trail to follow, but adrenaline was now the only thing keeping him going. 

Lightning suddenly struck a tree not 50 paces from him and the crash of thunder was so deafening Neil felt it in his teeth. The rain was now coming down in a torrential downpour and Neil suddenly realized he had summoned this storm with his magic. It hadn't been his intention but it would at least make him more difficult to follow. None of that would matter if he was struck and killed by lightning but he didn't have time to stop and think about that. 

In a desperate attempt to cover his tracks he ran through a small creek, following it as the path of least resistance until that path suddenly and violently ended. He was moving far too fast to stop and the ground disappeared beneath his feet and for one brief moment he was airborne and then in the next he was hitting hard rock and cold water.

Damage made itself known with his next step as pain shot up his side as intensely as the lightning that had just struck, but scrambling to his feet he forced himself to  _ keep moving. _ They would kill him if he stopped even for a second, or worse, send him back to his father, so he has to keep moving even when broken bones and bloody cuts scream in protest. Neil had a strong tolerance for pain and an even stronger will to survive. He wasn't going to die here, unremembered, unmourned and unburied. 

Up ahead, nestled into the base of the mountain he was now tumbling down there was a castle keep of some kind. It was a massive stone structure in the heart of a small valley with high walls and sturdy gates built to be defended from invaders. But when he got closer he realized that most, if not all of it was in ruins. 

Neil didn't bother to consider if it was a good idea to go inside, he had no other choice. He couldn't hear the horses chasing him anymore but he still didn't stop. A single path led up the rocky precipice to the gates of the keep, the path was treacherous and made even more so by the now torrential downpour of rain that turned dirt to slick mud and Neil kept slipping and falling as he climbed.

The portcullis, by some miracle, was open, perhaps damaged sometime in the past or maybe the place was just abandoned. Through the barbican and inner gate Neil ran, random strikes of lightning his only light to navigate by, as the sudden clouds now blocked any moon or starlight. The place was even more destroyed up close and as he ran through the bailey he passed the partially demolished battlements and the remains of a tower. Up wet stone stairs he went to the thick, blunt column of the donjon. If the keep was abandoned he could hide in the ruins until the storm passed and if it wasn't then the owner had done a shit job of keeping people out.

Neil's hope that the stronghold was abandoned died when he threw open the keep's doors and saw torches lit, but there was still no one to be seen. He looked hurriedly around but didn't stop running. He had to find somewhere to hide- at least until he could determine if the residents of this castle were better or worse than the men chasing him. Well that was the plan at least, until Neil rounded a corner and came face to face with one of them. 

Or Rather face to sword, as suddenly the stranger took a swing at Neil with his sheathed sword, and once again he was going too fast to stop and ran right into it. Metal slammed into his gut hard enough to crush his lungs into his spine. He didn't remember falling, but suddenly he was on his hands and knees, scrabbling ineffectually at the ground as he tried to breathe. He'd vomit if he could only manage that first gasp, but his body refused to cooperate. 

The world crackled black, then came into too-sharp focus as air finally hit Neil's tortured lungs. Neil inhaled so sharply he choked, and every wracking cough threatened to shake him apart. He wrapped an arm around his middle to hold himself together and slanted a fierce look up at his assailant. 

He had long blonde hair pulled back in a half ponytail and a grisly looking scar on his face that split his lip. Neil had assumed the man was a human, or maybe a tall halfling considering his appearance, but the sharp, cat eyes that looked down at him unmistakable.  _ Witcher _ . 

"It looks like the rat infestation has really gotten out of control since we've been gone." The Witched commented as casually as if he was remarking on the weather, pressing his still sheathed sword into Neil's back. 

"Please-" Pain cut him off when the dull point of the sword sheath suddenly dug much harder into his spine, his vision went black for just a second and he thought he was going to pass out.

"I don't like that word."

" _ What─? _ No I- There are people chasing me. I needed somewhere to hide." Neil pleaded. 

"Why should I care?"

"They'll kill me."

"So. Tell me why I shouldn't kill you myself." 

"I don't have a reason. I just don't want to die." Neil gasped weakly, his mind racing for any way out of the situation he had gotten himself into. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak, though in this instance he might have taken an actual fire. 

Outside thunder echoed through the ruins of the keep and rain continued to pour down. He wondered distantly if he really was going to die here, that after all the running and names and faces he was going to be killed not by his father but by this stranger for walking into the wrong keep. He didn’t realize he was smiling at the idea until a chuckle bubbled out and then another, slightly hysterical laugh shook his shoulders as he stared up at his hands and waited for the final strike to come that would put him out of his misery. 

But Destiny wasn't done with Neil yet because another Witcher appeared down the corridor, this one much older than the first and somehow  _ Neil recognized him _ . It was the Witcher he had helped in the forest all those months ago. Did that make this Palmetto? How the hell had he ended up here? The likelihood of running into him again was staggering but here he stood looking down at Neil with concern. Neil started laughing again at the absurdity of it all, hysterical gasping laughter.

"Goddamnit Andrew, what have you done now? Who the fuck is this?"

"I found a rat scurrying around in the shadows."

"And of course your first response was to bludgeon him. Wonderful." 

The first Witcher, Andrew, was still holding the sheathed sword to his back. He supposed he should consider himself lucky that it was still sheathed, the man could easily have killed with that first blow, though to be fair he probably didn’t need to unsheathe his sword to kill him. That was a pleasant thought. He would rather not be bludgeoned to death. Of all the ways to die that seemed fairly unpleasant. The mountainside had already done a pretty good job of that, it probably wouldn't take much more.

"Hey. I'm talking to you. Who are you kid and what the hell are you doing here in the middle of this goddamn storm."

"I-I-I-I--" His teeth were chattering almost too hard for him to speak. He must be going into shock. Probably from the blood loss. Or the cold. Fuck. "You t-told me t-t-to come here." Recognition dawned in Wymack's eyes when he finally placed how he knew him. He must look like a mess if it took the Witcher that long to recognize him, soaked to the bone with rain and covered in blood and mud. Or maybe Neil just hadn't been that memorable. That was a possibility as well, he made a conscious effort to be forgettable when he could.

"Well shit. It's you.  _ Hah _ , thanks for settling a bet for me kid. I told you we would meet again."

"P-people are chasing me,  _ please  _ I─ " At the word  _ please _ again Neil felt a sharp pain in his back and Andrew jabbed him with his sword sheath and Neil winced in pain. For a moment he didn't think the old Witcher was going to believe him but then the older man stood up and smacked Andrew's sword away from Neil. 

"That's enough of that. He's telling the truth. He helped me out with some Ghouls a while back, I invited him here. That means he's a  _ guest _ you little gremlin, try to show some hospitality."

"You needed help with just some ghouls? You really are getting old."

"Eh, needed help or not I got it all the same and unlike some people I know when to show appreciation." Turning back to Neil, Wymack asked "Tell me who's chasing you kid."

"I don't know. Just don't turn me over to them." He was about to say please again but remembered what Andrew had said,  _ I don't like that word _ . Better to avoid it than risk getting hit again. He didn't think he could survive another one of those hits. "I'll be gone as soon as- as soon as I can... I just- just need to rest… For a little while."

He was just so tired. It was more than just exhaustion from running for his life, he was tired deep, deep in his bones. Tiredness like a dull ache and his eyes kept drifting close. He wondered if he was dying.

"Let's get him to Abby before he bleeds out on the floor." Wymack said. "We can talk about this some more in the morning, when you're not dying."

"It looks like he's more likely to die of shock." Andrew pointed out.

"Well then we better fucking hurry now shouldn't we?" And to Neil's surprise Andrew actually listened. Pulling Neil to his feet the two men half walked half carried Neil up a crumbling staircase. Neil wasn't sure at what point he lost consciousness but he must have because then he woke up in a bed he did not remember, in a room he had no memory of. 

  
  
  
  


It was a feeling Neil knew by name after a lifetime on the run but that didn't make it any less unsettling to wake up in a place and a bed he didn't recognize. He tried to sit up and immediately regretted it─ bruised or possibly even cracked ribs from the blow to the chest he had taken most likely- that had been skillfully dressed and bound in clean gauze and thin strips of linen.

He took a quick mental stock of himself, hand immediately coming to the pendant that disguised his appearance and relaxing incrementally when he found it still around his neck. He was thankfully still clothed, and when he inspected the gash on his thigh he realized he had even been stitched up. All in all his wounds weren't terrible, the cuts were shallow and nothing seemed broken. He could move with some pain, even run if he had to. He had certainly had worse.

His belongings had been set in a pile beside him; his cloak, his swords, his boots and the bag that contained everything he owned from his father's stolen money to the meager food he owned. He wanted to immediately check and see if everything was still there but he wasn't alone in the room and his movement earlier had gotten their attention.

She was a middle aged human woman with a warm smile and kind eyes. Neil was automatically distrustful of her.

"Where am I? Who are you? What happened?" He asked in rapid succession, hands curling anxiously into sheets, needing something to hold onto. She didn't seem particularly dangerous but Neil wasn't one to be convinced by appearances alone.

"You're in the Palmetto Valley in the creatively named Palmetto Keep. My name is Abby Winfield. I'm friends with David Wymack and the healer here." She told him, sitting down next to him and offering him a cup of water. "You showed up at our doorstep last night in a terrible state and gave us all quite a fright. You're actually very lucky not to have been caught in the storm last night, it was one of the worst storms I've ever seen and it rolled in out of nowhere last night. If you hadn't found us when you did you might not have survived."

Neil grimaced and took the water though he didn't drink it. "I'm grateful for everything you've done. I don't have much to repay you with but I have some coin…" 

"Oh please that won't be necessary, David said you're a guest and you really shouldn't be travelling until you're fully healed." Neil didn't remember agreeing to that.

"I can't stay here─ I have to go." He shook his head trying to sit up again, this time more slowly.

"You're in no condition to travel-" 

"Even if he was, there's been a rockslide that's blocked the only road in or out of the valley." A new voice cut her off.

The blood left Neil's face so fast the world tilted because he recognized that voice, and for a person who has spent their entire life trying to escape their past, the feeling of familiarity was like tasting poison after you've already swallowed your drink. Even after years apart it was impossible not to recognize Kevin Day. At his side was Wymack and the Witcher who had attacked him, Andrew, he remembered Wymack had called him.

" _ You _ \-- You can't be here." He gasped, trying to get out of bed and get away but with his strength still all but sapped he was able to be gently eased back down into bed by Abby.

"So you know who I am."

"Everyone knows who you are."

It had been years since Neil stood in the same room as Kevin, years since they’d watched Neil’s father cut a screaming man into a hundred bloody pieces and now they were once again face to face. Kevin was from a totally different world than Neil, a prince and a knight who’s heroic deeds inspired bardic tales and legends, while Neil lived in the shadows, stealing what he needed to survive and never using the same name twice.

Everything about him was different. Everything was exactly the same, from his dark hair and green eyes to the black number 'two' tattooed onto his left cheekbone. Neil saw that number and wanted to retch. Kevin had that number back then, too.

Neil knew Kevin couldn't recognize him. It had been too long; they'd both grown up apart and he still had his amulet on. Kevin had no reason to connect Neil, a human with dirt colored hair and mud colored eyes, to the red headed elf he had met only once. His mother had created the amulet to alter appearance and hide his distinctive coloring. Still he waited for recognition to register in those green eyes but there was nothing but bored disinterest.

Relief made Neil almost sick to his stomach. Kevin didn't recognize him and this was just a horrible coincidence. Some might call it Destiny but Neil wasn’t one of them. He had had enough chance encounters and Destiny for one day. This had to be the world's way of showing him what could happen if he stayed in the same place for too long. Next time it might not be Kevin. Next time it might be his father and Neil wouldn’t survive another encounter with his father.

"I can't stay here." Neil repeated, but he couldn't even get out of bed let alone travel. He felt horribly helpless, at the mercy of these strangers and not for the first time he felt his mother's absence like a physical wound. He would never have gotten into a situation like this if she was still alive, but even if they did he knew she would protect him when he was vulnerable and couldn't protect himself. Now he had to look out for himself and he was proving to be quite bad at it.

"You already said that." Kevin said flatly. "But you still haven't even said who you are or what you were doing out in the mountains in the middle of a storm."

"...My name is Neil Josten." Neil said wearily, remembering the name he had given Wymack and eyeing them for any kind of reaction. 

"And what were you doing last night?"

"Nothing."

"Right.  _ Nothing  _ out in the mountains during one of the worst storms in a decade." Neil did nothing but stare up obstinately at Kevin who rolled his eyes. "And the people chasing you?"

"You don't have to worry about them anymore. They're dead." Wymack interjected.

"What?" Neil gasped.

"We found three bodies this morning when we went to check the damage the storm did. I'm assuming those are your bad guys. Right?" Wymack told him and Kevin glared at him as if him freely giving Neil this information was some sort of betrayal.

"How did- How did they die?" He forced himself to ask, swallowing hard.

"Struck by lightning."

"All three of them?"

"As unlikely as that sounds. Made identifying them pretty much impossible." The storm Neil had created… It wasn't the first time Neil had taken a life in his fight for survival and he knew it wouldn't be the last. He didn't regret it either, just hoped that no one would come looking for them and follow them here. 

"Enough. Tell me why you are here." Andrew said suddenly after being completely silent through that whole exchange

"Andrew," Abby said like she was about to scold him for his manners, looking over her shoulder at him but his piercing gaze remained fixed on Neil.

"I needed some place to hide."

"Hide from who? And why?" The way Andrew was looking at him made Neil feel like he could see straight through him. Not just through the illusion that obscured his appearance but through his lies and omissions.

"That's none of your business." He said stubbornly

"It is if you're going to be staying here. Wymack might have a soft spot for strays and let just anyone stroll in here and stay as long as they like but I'm not so forgiving. So answer the question."

Neil's eyes flashed to their audience, from Wymack toAbby to Kevin then back to Andrew, sweat starting to form at the back of his neck. Wymack seemed to be also interested in what Neil had to say and was willing to let this play out and neither Abby nor Kevin seemed to want to cross Andrew so Neil couldn't look to them to save him. He would have to talk his way out of this. "I can't answer that."

"Why not?" 

"I can't answer that either." He repeated, setting his jaw stubbornly.

"Then I'll just kill you." Andrew said flatly and suddenly there was a knife at Neil's throat. "Or we could just hand you over,  _ runaway _ . You're obviously running from something and it's clear that  _ someone _ is looking for you. Maybe the three that died in the woods were it or maybe they were working for someone."

Neil hadn't even seen where the blade had come from, but the cool edge digging into his throat was an all too familiar feeling and Neil didn't even blink. 

"Then do it."

"I can count the words you've said on my hands and yet already you're contradicting yourself. Just last night you said you didn't want to die. Was that a lie?"

"It wasn't a lie. I  _ don't  _ want to die but if you're planning on giving me over to the people who are after me then I'd rather you kill me because compared to what they would do to me slitting my throat would be a mercy." 

"And what would they do to you?"

"There are worse things than death." Neil's father had made sure he understood that from a young age. 

They stared at each other for a tense, breathless second before Andrew lowered the blade, the knife disappearing back into wherever he had it hidden. Whatever he said seemed to strike a chord with the Witcher because then just like that he was grabbing Kevin by his shirt and dragging him out of the room against his protests, leaving Neil alone with just Abby and Wymack.

Neil sunk back into the bed with a shaky breath and scrubbed his face. This was going to be a problem but at least he had bought himself some time to think of a convincing lie.

"Don't mind him, he gets territorial." Wymack reassured Neil, coming to sit down next to his bed. 

"I noticed…" Neil muttered, his hands still covering his face and muffling his words but Wymack must have heard them because he laughed. Witchers must have enhanced hearing, he should remember that.

"Whoever is after you Neil, you'll be safe here."

"You don't know that…" Neil croaked, now unwilling to show his face because he knew his expression of dread would give him away. "I can't stay here…" 

"Yes you can. Travelling during winter is stupid enough, in your condition you'd end up dead in fortnight." He said matter of factly and Neil couldn't argue. There was a small tremor to his frame as he forced himself to breathe evenly and not to panic.

"Neil. Look at me." Those words sent a note of dread through his whole body. The only person who ever said that to him was his father and when he did it always accompanied pain but Wymack's tone was gentle and reassuring, just like it had been when they first met. Slowly Neil lowered his hands and looked up to meet Wymack's warm orange eyes. 

"Do you know what this place is?" He asked and Neil shook his head. "This used to be the home of the School of the Fox, a Witcher school where Witchers were made. I dunno how much you know about the process of making a Witcher, turning a boy into─ what we are- but it's nasty business. Only three out of every ten survived the trials and those who didn't survive died in agony. I can still remember the screams of those that didn't make it… Nowadays there aren't anymore Witcher schools making new Witchers and most of the old schools were destroyed. So I took it upon myself to turn this place into something better. It's a place for people that everyone else has given up on. That's what I want Palmetto to be. It's about second chances, Neil. Second, third, fourth, whatever, as long as you get at least one more than what anyone else wanted to give you."

Neil was torn between incredulity and disdain. Why Wymack set himself up for disappointment time and time again, Neil didn't know. It was too much to take a chance on, but too much to walk away from. It hurt when he nodded.

"Take some time. Think about it. You don't have to do this alone." He couldn't possibly know what he was promising but it was almost cruel, like waving a piece of meat in front of a starving dog just to see it salvate. He didn't realize how badly he wanted this until it was offered.

Wymack exchanged one last look with Abby and then stood and took his leave, leaving Neil to consider his offer and it hung like an anchor around his neck..

"I can't say they will be your only visitors." Abby warned him with a smile. "The others are eager to meet you and now that you're awake I doubt I'll be able to keep them away for much longer."

"Just how many people are living here?" Neil asked, because if he had to have anymore conversations like the one he just had he would take his chances with the road and the weather.

"Including myself there are currently eleven people spending the winter here at Palmetto. You would be the twelfth." Only eleven people in an entire castle?

"Including the servants?" He asked and she laughed.

"We don't have any servants here. Not that we could afford to pay any but I suspect even if we could we wouldn't. David believes in hard work and being self-sufficient and it came as a bit of a shock to... certain people who were used to being waited on but we manage alright I think. We take turns with the chores and all pitch in to cook meals and keep everything running smoothly."

Neil was about to ask just how smoothly it really could be going if more than half the castle was rubble but just then two more people burst through the door, neither of them bothering to knock. It was a short elven woman with close cropped natural hair and a large human man that may have once been very attractive before whatever creature had left him with grisly scars across his face and neck, but his smile was boundless.

They introduced themselves as Danielle Wilds and Matthew Boyd and they seemed nice enough. Danielle, or "Dan" as she insisted he call her, was the vice-captain of the group Wymack had been describing and what Neil was coming to understand was some kind of mercenary band that she called "The Foxes". She was second in command after Wymack even though she herself wasn't an official witcher. She had all the training, she was quick to inform him, Wymack just wouldn't let her undergo the  _ Trial of the Grasses _ . Even without knowing what this trial was Neil could tell it was a sore spot for her and decided not to ask more about it.

Neil was actually a little surprised to hear that she was the vice-captain because based on the way they had interacted the previous night he had assumed that this Andrew was the second in command. He wasn't complaining though, Dan asked a lot fewer questions and was generally just nicer to be around. Matt and Dan were both also interested in who was chasing Neil, apparently Kevin and Andrew had found the bodies and refused to give them any details, but thankfully Abby shooed them out the door, saying Neil needed to rest when she noticed him struggling to stay awake and Neil was grateful to her for it.

After a short nap Neil briefly met two more members of the Foxes. It was another Witcher, this time a woman with snowy white hair and the same cat-like eyes as the other two and she was accompanied by a stunningly beautiful human woman with golden hair and a fine dress that called to mind stories of princesses in towers.

The female Witcher was named Renee and she had a soft melodic voice and a gentle smile that made Neil feel even more uneasy than Abby did. Allison Reynolds was the woman with her and Neil was too busy trying to place how he knew that name to listen to anything she was actually saying but she didn't seem to mind.

Renee noticed Neil's hesitation to eat the food she had brought for him and told him reassuringly that it wasn't drugged or poisoned because they wouldn't need to go to such lengths to kill Neil in the state he was currently in. It was harsh but enough to persuade Neil into eating uncomfortably under her watchful gaze. 

The food was a basic stew and some stale bread but it was the first real meal Neil had had in... months? The last person to cook for him was his mother and he never would have imagined that he would come to  _ miss _ her cooking after years of it being the only thing he ate but now realizing he would never taste it again he suddenly felt like crying.

He didn't cry however, he wasn't in the habit of crying in front of strangers- or anyone- so Neil cleared his throat and thanked them for the meal. Allison informed him he was lucky he didn't break a tooth on how stale the bread was and laughed when he said he hadn't noticed. Renee took his dishes once he was finished and she and Allison left, saying they should share a proper meal all together once he was feeling well enough.

Neil was honestly starting to get overwhelmed, in the past 24 hours he had spoken to more people than he had in almost a year. It was… Nice, and Neil was hit with a sharp pang of longing. Longing for a home he never had but always wanted.

"Home" was nothing but a mausoleum of pain of hatred for Neil, but in daily life he would see flashes of what he didn't have; a mother comforting her crying child, a father warmly embracing his son and it would fill Neil with such jealousy that he could taste copper on his tongue. Mary loved him, she had to, she gave her life to protect him but she was always too focused on if Neil would survive to see the next day to care if he was happy or not and Nathan─ Nathan wanted to be the one thing in the world his son feared above all else and he succeeded. 

Abby put a warm drink in his hands and murmured something to him in that soft voice of hers but Neil was too tired to listen properly. Her voice was so different from his mother's, he thought, lulling and gentle like a song where Mary's was sharp and impossible to ignore. He brought the warm liquid to his lips and was shocked by how sweet it was on his tongue. It was rich and creamy like milk but it was dark brown and it almost had a bitter aftertaste. 

The sun was still setting in the sky but he was finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. The exhaustion he was feeling was probably the price of using the magic he had performed he thought as he once again slipped into the darkness of sleep.


	3. Foxhole

When Neil woke up he felt better, which was a surprise frankly. After using that much Magic he would normally be feeling the effects for weeks afterward but he felt in pretty good shape when he came to. As best he could tell it was morning, pale sunlight creeping through the warped glass windows and there was a warm fire burning in the hearth to keep the chill out. He still felt sore  _ everywhere _ but when he sat up he no longer saw stars and slowly he stretched and tested out each of his stiff limbs. Even the cut on his thigh that had required stitches didn't hurt as bad as he expected it to. Certainly he's had much worse.

Abby wasn't anywhere to be seen and for the first time since he arrived at Palmetto he was alone. Neil immediately grabbed his bag and checked his things. Everything looked like it was still there and when his fingers found the heavy leather bound book that sat at the bottom of the bag he visibly relaxed. 

Everything was still in there in the same order he'd left it in, folded but crinkled from recent rough treatment. He checked and rechecked what meager possessions he had and everything was there. His warm winter boots, his dark wool cloak that was too stained with blood to be appropriate in public but still heavy and warm, fur gloves, 147 gold pieces, dried strips of horse meat, trail rations, rope, fire making kit, lock picks, and of course the book.

The book had been his mother's. It was a children's book of tales and legends written in sprawling elven. Not exactly her style, she wasn't the sort for sentimentality and she had never read Neil nursery rhymes when he was a child. The secret was in the book's illustrations, by using his birth name as a code. 

Not the name his father had given him, egotistically naming him after himself, but the elven name Mary had given Neil in secret when he was born, the name she always called him. Then the beautiful blue and green inks would paint a map to where Mary had hidden the money she had stolen from Nathan on the night they ran away, and how to avoid the magical defenses Mary had put in place there. It was enough money to finance a small kingdom but they had barely taken any of it before burying it and got by by stealing what they needed. 

Neil suspected Mary had mostly stolen all that money from Nathan just to spite him. Sometimes he wondered if that was the reason she had decided to take him with her as well, even though he had done nothing but slow her down and in the end, get her killed. Mary Hatford was nothing if not vindictive.

Neil got lost staring at the pages of the story book, fingers tracing the looping letters and brilliant illustrations. The stories were actually pretty grisly if you read through them, warnings about monsters that would eat children who wandered away and witchers that stole children from their beds. Paranoia told him that it would be stupid to assume that the other residents of this keep, especially certain short blondes, hadn't gone through his things while he was asleep but nothing was missing so he had no real reason to be upset. Replacing everything in his bag he immediately felt more comfortable with it's weight on his back.

He stood up next, testing his legs and wincing when he put pressure on the ankle he had twisted. It didn't feel good but he could at least walk and he needed to. Being stuck in bed all day had felt like a death sentence, he wanted to be on his feet. He got dressed, pulling pants, socks and boots on and then ventured outside the room, leaving the warmth of the hearth behind. He wanted to explore the keep and learn its layout so he could plan an exit when he had to make one.

It had snowed overnight, covering the entire mountain in a thin layer of snow and Neil could see his breath when he exhaled. He walked slowly, not wishing to reopen anything and wandering aimlessly. He found himself out on the ruined ramparts of the outer wall after climbing a set of crumbling stairs. You could see almost the entire valley from where he stood and it looked so blissful covered in snow. He leaned closer to the edge, trying to see where the rock slide had happened and almost fell to his death when someone behind him spoke. 

"Are you going to jump?" After regaining his footing he spun around to glare at Andrew, who was staring at him with those intense golden eyes. What was unnerving was Neil hadn't heard him approach, his footsteps must have been totally silent for him to sneak up on him like that. Or Neil had truly been lost in his own thoughts. That was actually a fair possibility, his mother would say he was getting sloppy and sloppy gets you dead. Every one of his survival instincts protested the thought of staying in one place for so long but logic argued that travelling in the winter was a bad idea and without his mother it was basically a death sentence. 

"Would you stop me?" Neil asked.

"You would drag me down with you." He said flatly and Neil grinned even though there was nothing funny about the situation. 

"Probably." He had no idea how true that sentence was. The witcher seemed tentative about approaching the edge for some reason and was watching Neil with the closest thing to an expression Neil had seen on his face. 

"What are you doing?" He asked. 

"I like the cold." Neil shrugged. 

"Why?"

"It makes me feel… Like I'm still alive." The tingling in his fingers, the chill on his cheeks and prickling on his skin, it made his breath come a little bit faster into clouds of fog from his lips. All of it felt like a reminder from his body that he was still here. 

"You won't be for much longer if you catch hypothermia." Andrew informed him and Neil just hummed in agreement, digging his fingers into the fresh snow and gazing off into the distance but Andrew didn't budge from his spot and it soon became clear that he wasn't moving until Neil did.

"Do you care?" Neil decided to ask, if they were asking questions now.

"Ground is too hard to dig a grave in winter." He grunted. It was a practical answer. 

"Then just burn my body." Neil said back with a practical answer of his own.

"If you died now it would be inconvenient." The same sentiment but now reshaped and restated for Neil to understand. 

With a sigh Neil pushed himself to his feet and climbed down from the rampart, giving Andrew a knowing look when the witcher fell in behind him but didn't say anything. The warmth of the keep was a welcome change from the winter chill. Just because Neil liked the cold doesn't mean he liked to be cold. There was a difference and he curled and uncurled his hands to get the blood flowing through his numb fingers once more.

"You could have said something when you found him." Came a bark but when Neil looked up he realized Matt's irritation was not directed at him but Andrew who didn't even acknowledge him as he walked past. 

"You were looking for me?" Neil asked, a furrow in his brow. He didn't think they would even notice he had stepped out.

"Yeah that usually happens when you're caring for an injured person and suddenly they're not in bed where they're supposed to be." Matt sounded like he was trying to be angry but all that came through his tone was concern. Neil suddenly felt like a misbehaving child who had worried his parent.

"I wasn't gone for that long."

"You weren't there when Abby went to check on you. She told us to look for you."

"Sorry. I'm fine though, really."

"You  _ should  _ be resting."

"Yeah, sorry. I'm not very good at staying in one place for too long."

"We noticed."

"S-" Neil opens his mouth to apologize but the look Matt gave him told him to save it and his shoulders sagged in defeat. "Um… Do you have a bathtub here? That I can use?" He asked instead, trying to distract the other man from worrying about him by asking for something. 

As expected Matt's face lit up and he nodded, hand coming to rest on one of Neil's shoulders to guide him into the keep. "Yeah we do! That's actually one of the best things about this place, the mountain it's built into has a natural hot spring that has healing minerals and the like apparently."

"Oh wow." He and his mother had stopped at a hot spring to bathe once. It hadn't been relaxing or healing, they washed in the waters as a part of a spell Mary was casting to misdirect their pursuers and on a more practical level to use the minerals in the spring water to mask their scent. He didn't particularly enjoy bathing, being alone with his own naked body made him far too aware of his scars, but in this cold crypt of a keep the hot water sounded nice. 

Neil might have been worried when Matt started to lead him deeper into the keep and down below to the dungeon except there was the undeniable tang of sulfur in the air and a humid heat that got stronger the further in they went. The space below the keep had been carved into the mountain itself and so the walls were much more natural, cave-like rather than the carved stone of the rest of the structure. 

They stopped in front of a heavy wooden door and Matt held up a hand for him to wait, knocking loudly against the door and then when no one answered he opened the door for Neil.

"Clean towels are in the chest and soap and buckets are already in there. Uh, if you see any fancy smelling oils and stuff probably don't use those. They're Allison's and she doesn't like sharing."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience." Neil mused, joking but Matt grimaced.

"She's not the only one who wants to smell nice! But apparently they're really expensive and having them delivered here is a real pain. Anyways, we do laundry down here too- not like here in the water we bathe in. In another part of the spring, downstream a little. There's another room, right down there, you can take your dirty linens and stuff there when you're done." Matt pointed to another door down the corridor and Neil nodded along with what he was saying. He couldn't remember the last time he had done laundry, maybe he could finally try and get some of the blood stains off his cloak and properly patch his socks.

The bath was much larger than the small springs he and his mother had splashed in or a simple bath tub, it was a large cavern, almost 40 feet in diameter with a low ceiling that was just tall enough for someone Neil's height to stand comfortably. Smooth boulders functioned as stools or chairs, and just below the water line the stone had been crudely carved into a bench. There was even a mirror in one corner next to the chest Matt had mentioned, though Neil avoided looking at it. 

Latching the door behind him, Neil began the painstaking process of getting undressed. His clothes were filthy from the storm he had run through, thick with mud and torn from the branches of the forest. His hair and body were no better, there were even bits of plant matter that had dried to his skin from the rain. He folded his clothes and set them in a pile atop the chest. The last thing to come off was his amulet, giving the empty chamber one last paranoid sweep Neil removed it and set it with the rest of his clothes. He didn't look at his reflection. He knew what he would see and he didn't want to see it. Self consciously touching the points of his ears Neil picked up a wooden bucket and bar of soap off the floor.

Easing into the steaming water was excruciating, every cut and scrape screamed in protest and to his ice cold feet and toes it felt like the water was scalding. He hissed in pain with every inch but eventually he was up to his waist and breathing slow, contrealed breaths through clenched teeth. The water was flowing deeper into the cavern to where the ceiling met the water, taking the mud and pine needles that covered Neil with it. The water got deeper the further out you went, thankfully Neil had felt the sharp and sudden drop off before he waded over it and was literally in over his head.

Neil wondered if you swam along the underground waterway from here if it would eventually lead outside the keep, assuming you could hold your breath long enough. It could be a potential exit if needed but the idea made Neil's throat feel tight with a claustrophobic fear.  _ No _ . He would find other ways out of the castle. Ones that kept his head above water.

He sat down at the stone bench by the edge, the water was almost up to his shoulders when he sat down and he sat perched on his knees to give himself a few more inches of breathing room. He filled the bucket with water and upturned it over his head. The dirty brown water that came away from his hair was quickly washed away and replaced by the cloudy blue of the spring. Neil repeated this several times until the water ran clear when he washed his hair. He tenderly cleaned his limbs, careful around his injuries but still through enough to clean out any dirt that might create the risk of infection. 

He was being far more gentle with himself than Mary ever was on the rare occasions they had a chance to bathe. She all but scoured his skin with soap and boiling water, reminding how much it would slow them down if either of them got sick or an infection.

As painful as the process had been he did feel better now that he was clean. Still pointedly avoiding his scarred reflection in the mirror Neil towelled off and got dressed in the clean (ish) clothes from his pack and with the amulet safely back around his neck Neil finally risked a look in the mirror.

He grimaced a little at his reflection and leaned closer to the mirror. He saw a human man, with hair that wasn't dark enough to be black but too dark to just be brown and plain brown eyes. Utterly unremarkable and completely forgettable. No one to notice in a crowd, no one to stick in one's memory. It was a solid glamour but still Neil scrutinized his hair, his eyes and ears for any cracks or flaws that might have slipped through the spell but there was nothing. 

Finally he relaxed and shouldered his bag, carrying his dirty clothes and towels to the washroom. There was another hot spring and several large basins and washboards. Neil wasn't about to ask or let anyone else wash his clothing as they were the only clothes he owned and sat down to wash them in the warmth while his hair dried and then hung them on lines that had been installed in a slightly less humid part of the underground.

When he came up from the caverns he could smell the irresistible scent of cooked meat and hear the sound of music drifting through the air. Neil's stomach took this moment to helpfully remind him that he had yet to eat anything today and would very much enjoy some of that meat so Neil followed the sound of lute music and melodic singing until he came to a dining room. Well it looked like it  _ functioned _ as a dining room. It was actually just the great hall of the castle where a large wooden table had been set up off to the side. The majority of the hall was taken up by boxes, crates, and (thankfully empty) cages. The room was massive, with chandeliers hanging from the tall ceilings, even if most of the chandeliers appeared damaged, hanging by a single chain or completely devoid of candles it was still an impressive space.

Seated at the table were most of the people he had met the other day, Matt, Dan, Renee, Allison, Abby, Wymack. Of course Kevin was there as well, seated next to Andrew. There were three men he didn't recognize. One of them was the bard that was sitting at the head of the table and singing a mocking song about a man named "Seth" and laughing in between verses. A witcher with dark hair and a darker expression looked like he was seconds away from lunging across the table and strangling the bard. This was presumably the titular "Seth". Neil almost didn't notice the other man, seated right next to Andrew he was a mirror image of the blonde witcher, the only difference was when he looked up to see Neil approach his eyes were a very human hazel.

"Wow, you clean up well." The bard said, setting down his lute to smile brightly at Neil and hold out a hand. "You were passed out when I came to meet you but you look  _ much _ better without that layer of mud."

"Uh, thanks?" Neil hesitantly shook the hand, glancing instinctively to Wymack for introductions or just an escape from this very loud person. Instead a chair was cleared for him and he was sat down in between Matt and this new person but Neil couldn't complain because a second later a plate filled with steaming cooked meat, greens and bread. Neil's mouth was literally watering and he tore into it like he was afraid it was going to vanish or be taken away. 

"The name's Nicholas Hemmick but you, good sir, may call me Nicky."

He would have to stop eating to answer so Neil just grunted in response but Nicky didn't seem to be bothered by this, nor did it deter him from continuing talking. "You've already met my darling cousin Andrew and this is his brother Aaron. As you might have guessed they're twins. Luckily we have the whole eye thing to tell them apart." Andrew did not react to this and Aaron glared. 

They didn't look like they were related, not that Neil was going to comment, but where the twins were light, Nicky was dark, with jet-black hair, dark brown eyes, and skin two shades too dark to be a tan. His ears also came to fine points from his curly hair. Nicky must have noticed Neil's raised eyebrows or just be really used to questions because without prompting he continued, "That's correct we're cousins. I just take after my mother. Dad 'rescued' her during some church mission and married her." He made a show of rolling his eyes.

Neil wasn't all that shocked to meet another half-elf, there were plenty around the continent and Nicky wasn't the first half-elf Neil had met. Their shared heritage might have even been a point of connection for them if that was something Neil at all valued and he wasn't disguised as a human. 

It wasn't that he was ashamed of his mother's heritage, it was simply easier to be human. Human's saw half-elves as elven and elves saw half-elves as humans and when you were trying to be inconspicuous it was just easier to be a human since most cities and towns were populated predominantly by humans.

So rather than comment on Nicky's tale Neil just nodded and continued eating. It would be important for his continued survival to understand how the Foxes worked and interacted together so he stayed silent and watched. The meal was loud and lively and at times it seemed like it was even going to come to blows.

Kevin's cold personality made it hard for the others to listen to him without snapping back and he caused the majority of the arguments and most of those fights were between him and Seth. Kevin and Seth hated each other with a loathing that came second only to what Seth and Nicky seemed to feel for each other. Though he despite how many times Seth jumped to his feet and reached for his blade he never actually struck at Kevin. 

That is until Andrew left with Renee to clean the dishes and the second they were gone he lunged for Kevin. Matt was the brute force that kept them from killing each other when Dan's words weren't enough. At first Neil incorrectly assumed Seth's sudden hostility was because Renee had left. She was like the eye of the storm, she doled out friendly advice and played mediator occasionally. She didn't get involved in the others' fights, either to take sides or preach peace, and no one argued with a word she said. 

Even Andrew seemed quite taken with her. Neil noticed them talking together as they carried the dishes to and from the kitchen and it was the most words he had seen either of them speak. Neil wasn't sure what to make of it. He was less sure what to think about Renee, her unwavering gaze and friendly smile were unnerving and he avoided her where he could. 

When the two of them returned she sat pleasantly between Seth and Allison and seemed to have a calming effect on both of them. Neil figured he was right in his assumption that Renee's absence was what made Seth lash out, but then he caught a chilling look that passed between Seth and Andrew and realized that it was Andrew that had kept them from jumping down each other's throats. Seth was afraid of Andrew and for whatever reason Andrew had seemed to stake his claim on Kevin so he put himself between Kevin and all the stupid fights he almost started.

Wymack didn't interfere in the fighting, which surprised Neil since he was the captain of this band and by far the oldest and most experienced but he let them brawl and get it out of their system. The only adult man Neil had to compare him to was his father and Wymack was so different from Nathan Wesinski that Neil wondered if it was because of the Witcher mutations. It seemed Wymack had long ago decided his team could only function by testing themselves against each other and establishing their own hierarchy.

Neil was invited by Dan to train with them but Abby declined for him, saying that just because he could stand didn't mean he was ready to practice his sword fighting. He asked if he could watch and Abby gave her permission so Neil followed the mercenaries out into the snowy bailey. Nicky sat with Neil off to the side, and when Neil asked why he wasn't going to join them he said he was a lover not a fighter. Which meant he mostly just provided a running commentary to Neil as they watched. 

Wymack led the first half of the training, warming up and then practicing Signs. Neil was especially interested in this and Nicky's comments on Kevin's physique or Matt's muscles were distracting. Witchers weren't mages but they could cast simple magic and even those who weren't officially Witchers could perform them. Witchers call these spells signs and they could be cast by arranging the fingers in a specific way and as he watched Neil studied their hand signals and incantations and mirrored them where he sat, lips moving silently as he mouth the elder words that formed the spell. 

After that Dan stepped in for the second part of training, pairing the Foxes off to spar against each other with their swords, switching off every ten minutes until each of them had fought against all of the other members. It didn't seem fair, in Neil's opinion, asking regular humans to spar with Witchers but was surprised at how well the humans like Dan, Allison, Kevin, Matt and Aaron held their own against the Witcher's enhanced reflexes and strength.

"So Neil, what can you do?" Nicky asked, and Neil was less interested in sword fighting than magic.

"What do you mean?"

"Well Wymack invited you here for a reason, he says you saved him so you have to do  _ something _ impressive other than be quiet and mysterious."

"I really didn't save him. He had the situation handled and I stupidly jumped in to try and help anyway. You don't really have to have a lot of skill to kill Ghouls."

"Aw I think you're selling yourself short. Wymack must have seen something in you or he wouldn't have invited you."

"Technically he just invited me to have a hot meal and a bed to sleep in for a night and I had no intention of actually taking him up on it. I ended up here purely by coincidence."

"What you call coincidence some might call Destiny, and besides that's just how he is. He only tells people about this place if he thinks they would fit in here."

Neil made a face at that. He didn't like Destiny and he especially didn't like it when it related to him. Of course this bard would think a stupid conicidence was some kind of divine act fo Fate. 

"I don't have a Destiny." He told him flatly.

"Sounds like something someone who's running from their Destiny would say." Nicky replied in a sing-song voice and Neil's expression darkened. 

"Don't." He warned. "Don't presume to know me." 

Nicky held his hands out in front of him in surrender and Neil let it drop and they returned to watching the others spar. Neil was mostly watching Kevin, who was by far the most skilled with the sword. Other than Andrew, who could have been better than Kevin if he took the training seriously. Unfortunately he didn't and the only time he demonstrated his incredible skill was to frustrate or humiliate whoever he was sparring with by smacking them across the thigh or on top of their head with the flat of his blade. It was almost cruel how obviously he was toying with every person he fought with.

Well, almost every person; he seemed to actually get serious when he was paired with Renee and to Neil's surprise she landed as many, if not more, blows than she received. He hadn't been expecting such ferocity from such a sweet face but she didn't hold back and she and Andrew were both terrifyingly powerful. Neil wondered if it was their Witcher abilities that gave them such an edge but when he watched Seth he was unimpressed, and when they traded partners Neil was forced to admit that they just must bring out the best in each other.

It was easy to sit on the sidelines and judge though and Neil knew every single one of them was a better swordsman than he was and in a fair fight he would lose to each of them unilaterally. Which was why Neil never fought fair and why he should have been studying the Foxes fighting styles and noting any weaknesses he could use if he ever did have to fight them. It was what his mother would have done, but Neil had no desire to fight any of these people or put himself in a situation where he would have to fight them. Instead he stood and returned to his exploration of the castle.

At least that had been the plan, but when he came to the kitchen Abby was preparing dinner and ended up helping her peel potatoes and cut vegetables even though he didn't remember agreeing or offering to help. Neil had some cooking skills, but those mostly pertained to skinning and cleaning animals he had caught and then cooking that meat, so his vegetable cutting skills were somewhat lacking. Abby didn't seem to mind other than occasionally asking him to redo one or two pieces that he had cut too thick.

It was actually… Nice? Making food for people other than himself was satisfying, even though he didn't do much he still felt the tickle of pride when the other Foxes came in from their training and eagerly ate the stew he had helped Abby make. He remembered what she had said the other night about how everyone helped out around the castle to keep things running and felt something dangerously close to a sense of belonging for just a moment and he quickly stamped it down. He couldn't afford to get comfortable here, just like with anywhere else he would have to run eventually and getting attached to the place or the people would just make it more painful when he did.

After dinner Matt and Seth helped him relocate from the infirmary to the part of the castle where everyone else slept since he was well enough to be out of bed and Wymack seemed to have made the decision for Neil that he would be staying for the winter. They called it Fox tower. It was the largest part of the castle that was still intact, tucked almost into the mountain it was a large single tower with a spiral staircase. There were enough rooms so that all of the current residents could have their own room, though some like Dan and Matt or Renee and Allison chose to share a room. 

There were four rooms on each floor and three floors. Neil would have preferred to have a room on the ground floor in case he needed to make a fast exit but apparently those rooms were all claimed so Neil was given one of the last open rooms on the second floor where Aaron, Nicky and Seth currently resided. Which left the top floor to Kevin and Andrew. Neil wondered why one of them didn't stay on the second floor if there was a room available and Matt made a joke about them needing adjoining rooms that Neil didn't know was serious or not.

The room had a bare mattress in an ornate wooden bed frame, a cold fireplace and a dresser. Seth muttered darkly as he went to go find blankets for Neil and Matt rolled his eyes at his bad attitude while he helped Neil light a fire in the hearth. Neil stood to the side as the two men prepared his room, left with nothing to do other than hold his bag.

Finally with sheets, a pillow and a heavy quilt covering the mattress and a healthy fire warming the room the two took their leave. Matt wished him a good night and Seth said nothing and slammed the door behind him. Neil latched the door behind them and prepared for bed, quickly crawling under the covers for warmth and a sore exhaustion settled over him like a second quilt and he was asleep in a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i couldn't call this a real witcher au if i didn't have a bath scene. and if you expected nicky to be anything other than a bard idk what to tell you


	4. Hunting Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew takes Neil along with him on a hunt for some quality bonding time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a long chapter to (hopefully) make up for the long wait

The days fell into something of a routine. Neil would help with the chores around the castle, mostly the cooking and the laundry, and then in his free time he would explore the keep and add to his mental map of it. Meals were more or less a group ordeal though occasionally people chose to skip the meal or eat by themself. Neil had time to mend all of his clothing that had torn and frayed from life on the run. 

Renee actually helped him when she saw what he was doing and well, needlework had never been Neil's calling. She sat with him and taught him stitches that would hold better than the messy whip stitch he had been using. She seemed quite excited to talk about it and even brought out her collection of colorfully dyed thread to show Neil. She offered to let him use it but he declined, saying it might look a bit odd for a brown tunic to be mended with pink thread. 

His recuperation also gave him time to practice his cooking skills. Wymack and Abby switched off cooking and they were both happy to have Neil's help in the kitchen. When he was with his mother they ate what they could catch or steal, and Mary's method of cooking was as utilitarian as she was; usually drying or salting the meat. That was what happened to their last horse after they rode it past exhaustion. Mary was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth─ so to speak. 

The Foxes were all friendly, even Kevin Day warmed up to him and seemed to take a personal interest in his recovery, eager to spar with him after Wymack mentioned how they had met. Neil did not look forward to it. 

The only person who didn't say a word to him was Andrew. He didn't say much to anyone as far as Neil could tell, not even his own twin brother. Renee could occasionally engage him in a conversation but when Neil tried to listen in it was nonsense. Then, on the eighth day Andrew appeared in front of him and said simply.

"Get dressed. We're leaving."

Neil blinked. His injuries were healed enough that he was technically well enough to travel but that didn't mean he wanted to.

"Where?" He asked.

"Hunting." 

"Why?"

"Don't ask stupid questions."

"But the rock slide-"

"Has been cleared. Gather your things, we have a lot of ground to cover."

"Do I have a choice?"

"There's always a choice."

"Is there a right choice?"

"Yes."

"...Fine. I'll go get my things." 

Kevin was waiting with Andrew when Neil returned with his bag packed and sword strapped to his side. Neil didn't know what else he expected, Andrew didn't let Kevin out of his sight, so of course he would be coming as well. The fact that there was another person coming did nothing to ease the anxiety he felt, if anything it amplified it. Being alone with Kevin and Andrew was just about the last thing he wanted to do. Especially considering how their last conversation had gone. Neil had the sneaking suspicion that this hunting trip was just an excuse to get Neil outside the keep so that they could interrogate him properly without Wymack interfering.

Or maybe they were just going to kill him. 

All the other Foxes seemed to be out or busy so unfortunately for Neil no one stopped them as they went to the stable and mounted up. Neil didn't have a horse so he was put on the back of Kevin's, seeing as he was barely over five feet tall and only a hundred pounds. Kevin had tried to suggest that Neil ride with Andrew on his horse since they were both… He wasn't brave enough to finish his sentence under the intensity of Andrew's silent stare. Andrew got on his horse and started toward the gate and Kevin roughly hoisted Neil onto the back of his horse.

They rode in silence for almost an hour before Neil finally spoke up. 

"So, is this the part where you take me out into a secluded part of the forest and kill me?" He asked conversationally, looking around the forest to see if he recognized anything. It was pointless. Even if he hadn't been blinded by adrenaline that night the only light had been the lightning that got too close. There was almost an inch of snow on the ground now and more falling. And in the bright morning light Palmetto valley was beautiful. There was a small lake at the center that was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom and in the stillness of winter it looked like a perfect black mirror.

"Don't be an idiot." Kevin said and Neil could hear the scowl in his voice. 

"Then what is this?"

"A contract. A town to the south needs a Witcher."

"I'm not a Witcher. Neither are you for that matter. So why are we coming along?"

"I am a respected Knight-"

"Which is why you need Andrew to look after you like a wetnurse?"

"Can you just be quiet for once and listen? You're an unknown variable. If you're going to be one of us then you have to prove that you can be trusted."

"So this is a test?"

"It's a chance. Whatever you're hiding from, you're not the only person with demons that you're trying to outrun. Every one of us is a Fox because there was no other option. Wymack, Andrew─ they will protect you if you let them."

"And what would that cost me?"

"The truth. Give them  _ something _ . Start with that amulet you wear, everyone can tell it's magic." The earnestness in Kevin's voice was at once hilarious and infuriating. He had no idea what he was asking for. He had no idea who Neil was because if he did he would know what it was Neil was running from. He would know that Witcher or no, nothing could protect him. 

"Is that what you gave them?" Neil's laugh boarded on hysterical, "To protect you from the Moriyamas?" Since they were pressed close together he could feel Kevin's spine stiffen at the name and he felt a cool sense of satisfaction. His reaction was all he needed that his guess why Kevin was here was right on the mark. "They raised you, invested a lot of time training you and raising you to knighthood. Anyone else would have been grateful but not you. I assume however you hurt your hand is what made you leave." 

Again Kevin's reaction confirmed Neil's suspicion. Neil knew Kevin was left handed from before, but now Kevin always held his longsword in his right hand when he sparred. At first Neil had thought he was just practicing with his nondominant hand for a challenge but one day in practice his opponent hit his hand and he dropped his sword so fast it was like it had been burned. Neil didn't think it had even been that hard of a hit but Kevin was shaken for the rest of practice. After that Neil started noticing the way he always kept his left hand covered, usually with gloves or a bracer, and the way he held it─ something had happened. That much was clear. 

"Instead you're out here in the middle of nowhere living in a crumbling castle hoping it's more trouble to find you than you're worth. Hoping that when they come for you these Witchers will protect you. So what you're saying is, I should be more like you? Put as many people between me and the people after me as possible and ask them to die for me? Unfortunately I don't have the natural charisma you do Sir Day, but thank you for the advice." And with that Neil vaulted off the horse and onto the snowy ground. "I need to piss." 

"Running away?" Kevin asked, looking down at Neil even more from atop his steed. The massive warhorse stood nearly a head taller than Neil and had a beautiful coat of chestnut and white. It was obviously a purebred courser and he could almost hear his father's voice in his head remarking on the merits of its obvious pedigree. 

"You can watch me if you'd like. It would certainly explain some things about your character if that was what you were into." He said over his shoulder, walking just a few steps beyond the trees. He could walk back to Palmetto from here if he really wanted to but there was no point. He had agreed to this willingly even when he thought it was an execution. 

It wasn't Kevin Neil had to worry about anyways. It was Andrew. Wymack might be in charge of the Foxes and Dan his second in command, but if Wymack was the foundation that the group was built upon then Andrew was the walls. Silent and separated from the rest yet sturdy and unyielding. At least that was the impression Neil got from watching him interact with the other Foxes, which he did rarely. Nicky had offhandedly told him that Andrew was the oldest member, the first one to be recruited by Wymack. 

Neil remembered what Wymack had told him about why he created the Foxes and chose Palmetto for its base and wondered if Andrew had anything to do with that decision. When Neil had tried to press the bard for more information about the silent Witcher, like why he was a Witcher when his twin brother was human, Nicky had quietly explained. The twins’ mother had been rescued by a Witcher when she was giving birth to them and he had claimed the Law of Surprise for payment. 

The Law of Surprise was a custom as old as humanity itself. The Law dictated that a man saved by another was expected to offer to his savior a boon whose nature is unknown to one or both parties. In some cases, the boon takes the form of the saved man's firstborn child, conceived or born without the father's knowledge. So Tilda, as Neil learned was her name, had given up one of her newborn twins to the Witcher. That twin was Andrew. Neil asked if that Witcher was Wymack but Nicky shook his head, said his name was Higgins and that he had been from the School of the Boar or something or another. 

The fact that Andrew and Aaron had still somehow met despite being separated at birth was almost enough to make a person believe in Destiny. Not Neil. But some people. 

Neil returned to Kevin after he had relieved himself. When Kevin offered a hand to help him up he stubbornly ignored it and climbed onto the massive horse himself. Thankfully Kevin did not try to speak to Neil again and they rode in silence with Andrew just a few meters ahead. 

The horse Andrew rode was completely black and extremely muscular. An unintelligible brand marked its flank and dozens of other scars and battlesigns covered its sides. It must be a war horse, or was at some point. Most horse masters would put a horse that has seen that much damage down, but it seemed to be carrying Andrew's small frame without trouble. 

The sun was beginning to set when they peaked over the ridge and saw the small port town down below. The smell of sea water hit them all at once and Neil had to fight not to be sick. The ocean was a grey expanse of nothingness that expanded out into the horizon and past forever. Neil hated the ocean but he said nothing as their horses carefully maneuvered the switchbacks down the mountain and into the village. 

When Andrew had agreed to take their contract apparently rooms at the local tavern had already been prepared because they were ready when they arrived. It was the warmest welcome to a village Neil had ever been greeted with and really showed just how desperate these people must be, since Witchers were typically treated with mistrust and hatred. Though Kevin's presence probably went a long way to ease people's usual fear of Witchers. 

The inn was lively and full and as the sun set, and night grew more and more people arrived. Neil suspected that whatever beast was haunting the town also had something to do with how many people crammed into the small building. There was safety in numbers and in the light and Neil could see the fear in their eyes as they glanced toward the door every time it opened and the night spilled in, reminding them of what waited for them just beyond the door. 

"So." Neil said as they sat down. The crowd of people parted easily before Andrew, all of the villagers giving him a wide berth because no matter how grateful to him they might be, they were almost as afraid of the Witcher as they were of the monster they had hired him to kill. "Are you going to tell me why you brought me now that we're here if you're not just bringing me out here to kill me."

"As bait." Andrew said without an ounce of humor in his voice.

"Makes sense. I should have known you were all just trying to fatten me up, I just assumed you were going to be the ones to eat me." Neil shrugged, watching the innkeeper make her way through the crowd with a plate of food and a bottle of liquor that she set down on the table for them with a nervous smile. 

"From the whole town, as a thank you for making your way all the way out here."

"It was only a day’s travel and the snow isn't too deep yet." Andrew said dismissively but took the bottle and poured himself a drink. 

"What he means to say is thank you, my lady. Your generosity does not go unnoticed." Kevin spoke up to reassure her and she smiled with relief. 

"We got your contract but can you tell us a little more about the monster?" Neil spoke up before she could walk away. He could feel both Kevin and Andrew's eyes on him but he was smiling at the innkeep. 

"It started when Nils from our village disappeared. No one was able to find him and everyone but his fiance Britt thought he'd run away. She said somethin’ had took him. Said she was with him one moment then a shadow passed o'er head and Nils screamed, and then he was gone. But she's got a wild imagination so we didn't pay her much mind until the bones started washing up on the beach. We thought it might be drowners but there's no nest or nothin'. Three others have been lost since then and folks are scared." It was refreshing to get a straight answer to his question for once and he nodded along with her story. 

"You did the right thing contacting us," He reassured her. "We'll do everything we can to eliminate the monster hunting you. Thank you for the meal." She nodded and excused herself to let them eat. 

"Is everything that comes out of your mouth a lie or are you actually capable of telling the truth?" Andrew asked and Neil shrugged.

"I didn't lie. I just told her what she wanted to hear and asked her what you two wouldn't tell me."

"So you lied."

"That's up to you." Neil shrugged again. "Kill the monster and it won't be a lie. What do you think it is anyways?"

Andrew looked at him like he was contemplating ignoring him or maybe murdering him but finally answered, "Hard to tell based on just stories. Humans will see a forktail and call it a dragon- can't discount drowners just because no one has seen them either. Soon I'll go have a look around, see if I can find anything."

"Shouldn't you wait until it's light out?" Neil asked as Andrew poured himself another drink and then one for Neil. He slid it across the table in an act that was more threatening than it should be.

"I can see just as well at night as I can in day." Andrew replied, tapping his temple with two fingers and indicating his cat-like eyes. 

Making eye contact with him was a mistake. Andrew made a gesture with his hand that made Neil's entire world tilt horribly.  _ Fuck _ . He had watched the Witcher's practice their Signs enough to know exactly what was happening. Unfortunately knowing he was currently under the influence of the Axii spell did nothing to help him. "But first I've got some questions for you."

Axii was a simple magical sign used by Witchers to calm people and creatures down and manipulate their minds. Neil spilled the drink as he lurched to his feet, kicking himself for being so  _ stupid _ . Thinking just because they were surrounded by people that he would be safe. He desperately looked to Kevin for help, stupidly, and Kevin just looked at him as he poured himself a drink, clearly uncaring. 

In an instant he was bolting toward the door and out into the night. The cold was like a slap in the face to Neil's flushed face and the bitter sea wind stung his cheeks. His mind wasn't clear enough to know  _ where _ he was running, but he trusted his feet to carry him away and right now that was enough. He stumbled in the snow, slipping and falling to his knees as he scrambled to regain his footing.

Andrew caught him by his hair and slammed his back into the wooden wall of the tavern. A cruel twist pulled his head back at a dangerous angle. Neil reached for him with lethal intent and Andrew almost broke Neil's hand with the force he used to slam it down next to his face. Neil was breathing hard like a trapped animal. His eyes searched desperately for some way out but everything was a sickening blur.

" _ Be still."  _ Andrew's words had the weight of magic behind them and just like that all the fight left Neil and he went still. It was like his strings had been cut. He was still just as angry and scared only now his body just wouldn't listen to him. He was still breathing in quick panicky breaths, his mind working in overdrive to escape the spell's effect but it only seemed to make things worse. 

It was much, much too late for Neil to try and calm himself. The pounding of his own heart was deafening in his ears and with his head spinning it felt like it was going to beat right out his chest.

"Such ingratitude," Andrew said. "That liquor was  _ a gift _ ." 

"Don't─" Neil tried to form words but it was like he couldn't remember how to form the syllables to make words. The spell had a limited range and was already starting to wear off, but Neil still wasn't strong enough to fight Andrew.

"Let's start with the big one. Who are you really, and why did you come here? Wymack would collect every stray that wanders in through our door and call it Destiny but I'm a bit of a cynic, see. I don't believe in Destiny and I don't believe in coincidence either." 

"Mind your own business." Neil spat,

"Tonight is Mind Neil's Business Night," Andrew said. "Didn't you notice? Give me something real or I won't let you stay."

"You don't get to decide that- it isn't your say."

"Oh, but it is. It's my job to protect these people, especially from dangers they don't recognize."

"I'm not a danger to  _ anyone _ ."

" _ Liar _ . You might not think you are but Chaos clings to you like a foul odor."

"I'm not a threat to you or Kevin any of the others." Neil tried again.

"I get to decide that. When I first asked you, you told me you  _ couldn't  _ answer. Not that you  _ wouldn't  _ but you physically could not, like something was stopping you. So I've removed any external factors that could have been stopping you at the time, there is no audience, no danger. So tell me."

Neil didn't have a choice anymore, he had to give Andrew something. Just to get him off his back (literally).

"Fine." He growled. "Let me go first."

"So you can run again?"

"So I can fucking breathe! Get off of me and I'll… I'll tell you."

"Try and run from me again and I'll take your head off. I only chase something once." It was a threat Neil fully believed. Andrew released him, letting go of his hair and stepping backwards. Neil took several deep breaths that devolved into a coughing fit and then a few more after that, slower this time, until he no longer felt like a noose was being tightened around his neck. 

He gestured for Andrew to follow him, walking further outside the town and toward the rocky beach and where the icy waves crashed to shore. The rhythmic sound of the ocean should have been calming but it only made Neil feel worse. The ocean would always remind him of his mother. Just like the smell of smoke and fire, those things were intrinsically linked in Neil's memory and there was no way to untangle them.

_ Start with that amulet, _ Kevin had told him. He knew now that Witchers could sense magic and enchantments but he didn't think anyone had noticed the pendant he wore around his neck. Apparently not. Apparently they just had been polite enough not to ask about it. Polite was not something he had come to associate with the Foxes so it was a bit of a surprise. His hand came up to the necklace and his fingers curled rigidly around the leather cord it was tied on. 

Andrew was watching him, he could tell because his eyes reflected the moonlight back at him like an animal's in the dark.

He could still remember the look in his mother's eyes when she hung it around his neck. She was intense as always but there was something else in her voice that night, something Neil would come to recognize as desperation. 

_ Don't ever take it off Abram, not even to sleep. Do you understand? You must never lose this. _ Her fingers had dug into his shoulders so hard they had left bruises. She hadn't even been dead a year and he was already breaking another one of her rules. When his father found him he would deserve whatever happened.

With a final sigh of resignation Neil took one last look around, making sure they were truly alone and then pulled the amulet off. He felt the magic fall away and immediately anxiety began to crawl under his skin. He knew what he would see if he looked in the mirror right now. He would see his father's cruel face, his deep red hair and those icy blue eyes. The only feature he had inherited from his mother was her small stature and her pointed ears, in every other way he was unmistakably his father's son. 

"You're elven." Andrew said flatly, clearly wondering if that was Neil's big secret.

"Half. My mother is elven. My father is human."

"And that's what you want to hide?"

"Not… exactly. It was just easier to blend into the background if people thought I was human." 

"I'm waiting for a point behind all this."

"My parents are dead," The best lies, Neil found, were the ones closest to the truth.

"Did you kill them?" Andrew asked it so casually, like he was asking for the time, that Neil could only stare at him for a moment. It was such an unreasonable leap of logic Neil didn't understand how he even thought to ask it.

"Did you kill yours?" Neil shot back, bristling at the invasive line of questioning.

Andrew gave a dismissive flick of his fingers. "I don't have parents."

"No, I didn't kill them. But the people who sent those men after me did."

"And who would that be?"

"The Moriyamas." This got Andrew's attention. The Moriyamas were a royal family with ties and connections that ran almost as deep as their roots. They were more than just powerful, they were dangerous and Kevin Day knew that better than most. 

Kevin's mother had been a queen of a small kingdom that neighbored the Moriyama's land. They had an alliance but when Kayleigh Day died the Moriyama's quietly absorbed that land into their own. Kevin was sent to be raised by Tetsuji Moriyama alongside Tetsuji's nephew Riko, who was of the same age. Together they were trained to be knights of the realm.

The only reason Neil knew all of this was because his father worked for the Moriyamas. Nathan Wesninski, better known as The Butcher, was an absolute and unrepentant bastard. The self proclaimed Baron was more of a warlord than actual nobility, but with the war going on that was enough authority for some people. 

After the original lord of Baltimore fled north, abandoning his people to the mercy of the invading armies, the Butcher had been the closest thing the population had to a leader. He was called the Butcher because he favored a common kitchen cleaver or axe over any sword, and not because of any actual skill in butchering livestock. His land was a part of the district the Moriyamas ruled over and he answered to their lord Kengo. He helped maintain their far reaching rule.

When it was discovered that Neil had inherited his mother's gift of magic, he had been promised to the Moriyamas as a mage in their court. That was the first and only time Neil had met Riko and Kevin, or visited castle Evermore- the day his father had cut that man to bloody pieces seemingly just for the fun of it. 

If Kevin connected him back to that day he would immediately know who his father was and just how dangerous he was. There was no way he would allow Neil to stay after that. He had to make this story convincing.

Swallowing hard to clear the tightness from his throat, Neil explained. "My father was a minor lord under the Moriyamas. In the grand scheme of things he wasn't worth much, but he thought he was special just like all nobles do. He started getting greedy, getting stupid. He stole money that was supposed to belong to the lord. They found out of course, and publicly executed him and my mother. I took what he'd stolen and ran. I've been running ever since."

Andrew wasn't smiling anymore, but Neil was. He felt it as it curved across his lips and knew it was a sick, ghastly expression. He dug his fingernails into his cheek, trying to claw the look off his face, but it was frozen in place. It was half a lie but still the closest thing to the truth Neil had ever told anyone.

"What makes you think we'll protect you from the Moriyamas." Andrew asked.

Andrew would have to wait a little bit longer for Neil's answer because it was in that moment that a dark shape passed over them. Suddenly and without warning taloned hands dug into Neil's shoulders, piercing the skin and lifting him up off the ground. 

He screamed but it was too late, the siren already had him in its’ claws and was carrying him high over the ocean. Neil felt a sickening wave of vertigo, or perhaps that was just the poison from the siren's talons hitting his system. Either way if he struggled too much now it would drop him into the icy water below. He knew what it felt like to drown well enough to be afraid.

Neil never learned how to swim. There had never been a reason to as a child of a warlord in a landlocked country. By the time he realized it was an important skill to have it was much too late. His mother had hired a boat to ferry them across a river when there was an ambush. An arrow had buried deep in Neil's back and knocked him overboard into the rushing river. His mother dove in after him but he had already been swept up by the current and carried downstream. He didn't remember slipping below the water, or when his mother pulled his unconscious body onto the shore, just the pain and the fear. The water filling his throat, his lungs burning, and no matter how hard he kicked the current just pulled him back under. 

They had been careful to avoid traveling by water after that. Just another rule Neil had forgotten without Mary and now he was going to die because of it. He heard that Sirens liked to drown their victims, to hold them underwater and watch as the life left them. He hoped the poison killed him before that happened.

He didn't hear the crossbow bolt be released but he certainly heard the noise the Siren made when it hit her. Neil thought his eardrums were going to burst when she screamed. The bolt had punched a hole in her wings and the thin tissue tore as it flapped desperately to stay airborne but with the extra weight of Neil she couldn't. They were falling. 

Neil used his last coherent thought to curse the Witcher a violent death before he was plunged into the icy water and all thoughts left him. The siren still had a hold of him, her talons gripping him tighter and her fish-like tail wrapping around him and crushing him. All the air in his lungs escaped in a cascade of bubbles along with the scream of agony that was squeezed out of him. The pain was blinding and the panic beginning to take hold was inescapable. 

It was a fitting death, he figured. Ironic even. The moment he had opened his mouth to speak the truth he was struck down. The timing was almost comical and he would laugh if he wasn't drowning. 

Needle-like teeth found his neck and were seconds away from tearing open his throat when the murky water suddenly became clouded with something sickly and green. The bilous cloud of blood obscured everything but the Siren had released it's hold on Neil. Someone else had taken hold of him now. Strong arms wrapped around his waist and pulled him to the surface in short powerful strokes and suddenly he could breathe again.

Air seemed like a foreign concept to Neil's oxygen starved brain but he gasped and coughed for breath anyways. He heaved up great mouthfuls of water but consciousness was fleeting. Just because he wasn't drowning didn't mean he wasn't dying. The siren was dead but it's poison was coursing through his veins. 

"Fuck you." He swore when he could finally breathe again. Maybe it was the poison making him delirious but he swore he saw the Witcher's scarred lips twitch in the barest hint of a smile.

"Most people say thank you when they're rescued."

"Do you typically try and drown the people you rescue? If so I know why everyone hates Witchers." Neil spat, but his consciousness was fleeting and already his vision was starting to go dark at the edges. The last thing he felt was his face hitting the rocky shore of the beach as he lost the battle to stay awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow neil really gets put through the wringer in this fic huh, sorry neil...


End file.
